The goals of this research project are: 1) to come to a better understanding of the relation between social information processing and aggressive behavior in children; and 2) to develop clinically useful measures for the assessment of social information processing skill deficits in aggressive children. A model of the necessary sequential steps involved in processing social information will be formulated and tested in two sets of descriptive and experimental studies, with the goal of developing assessment tools for aggressive children. The contexts for these assessments will be derived empirically in a third set of studies through an analysis of the interpersonal situations that are most likely to lead to problems of aggression. In a fourth set of studies, these aggression-inducing situations will serve as the contexts for the assessment of social information processing deficits in several clinically referred populations of aggressive children. The hypothesis underlying this research is that deficits and biases in the processing of social cues increase a child's risk for displaying aggressive behavior in various situations. If these deficits can be identified in children who are at risk for alter delinquency and violent crime, it may be possible to develop empirically based social skills training programs to inhibit aggressive behavior and prevent these maladaptive outcomes in children.